Generally, mobile terminals currently available in the market are not provided with functions of scanning and decoding a barcode. Although some advanced mobile terminals are equipped with cameras and decoding software, the small memory thereof makes them unable to integrate therein a large decoding database that comprises the great variety of barcodes of various versions. Therefore, it is impossible to update the decoding database of the mobile terminal in real time to cover and to decode newly emerging barcodes.
Furthermore, due to limitations of the memory size and the operation frequency of the mobile terminals, the decoding and computing capabilities of the built-in decoding software of the mobile terminals are also limited. Consequently, the decoding rate is relatively low for barcodes that are unclear, stained or deformed. This degrades the applicability of using the mobile terminals to decode barcodes in people's daily life.
Accordingly, an urgent need exists in the art to provide a solution that allows a mobile terminal to decode various types of barcodes quickly and effectively.